Thursday, January 31, 2013

Lately I've been told by more than one person to watch the TV show "The Big Bang Theory." I've been told that it's "the smartest show on TV" and what's more, I've heard so many people utter this little gem...

Last I checked I have a reasonable amount of brain power, so I was eager to see a sitcom filled with intelligent humor. For those who aren't familiar, "The Big Bang Theory" is a sitcom about two socially awkward but brilliantly smart physicists and their hot, blonde, (and pretty dumb) neighbor.

So with high expectations I sat down to watch a few episodes. My brain was ready for stimulation... but instead, what I was met with was a pretty typical sitcom. Fart jokes. Sex jokes. Puns. Sure, scientific references are thrown in (sometimes arbitrarily), but most of the jokes are just regular jokes disguised with bigger vocabulary words. And did I mention there are plenty of fart jokes? Now come on, do you really need to be an astrophysicist to understand a fart joke?

But worry not, friends, because after an 8 year doctorate program and $120,000 in school loans, I'm comfortable saying that I understand most of the show.

After I complete my night courses in whoopy cushions, I'll be well on my way to understanding this show.

So really, why do people think you have to be a genius to "get it?" I'm pretty sure a person with even below average intelligence can understand the humor in being socially awkward, or fumbling things up with a woman, or a goofy catchphrase. Let's face it, at its core this is all pretty lowbrow humor.

A fart joke by any other name is still a fart joke, folks, no matter how you dress it up. But if that's what it takes to be considered "smart humor", well, we can do that, too.

And there you have it. We're now officially the smartest blog on the net. But don't take our word for it. Just read these blurbs we completely made up.

"Humor so smart even *I* don't understand all of the jokes" - Stephen Hawking

"We're only a month into the year but I'm already calling it - the most important scientific discovery of 2013 will be the humor found in this blog" - Neil deGrasse Tyson

"The smartest blog in the entire history of the Internet, including the history yet to come" - Carl Sagan's Ghost

Monday, January 28, 2013

Welcome, folks! Today's post is inspired by a commercial we saw yesterday promoting the new season of the TV show Guinness World Records, which features such amazing world records like the man who can crush the most walnuts with his anus. A hallmark of human achievement, to be sure. Or how about this guy, who set the standard for blowing bubbles with a tarantula in his mouth? (Skip to 3:10 for the, er, good part.)

Amazing, right? Hundreds of millions of years of evolution have brought us to this, the ultimate collection of humanity's recorded feats. Sure, there are some truly amazing records like the world's fastest runner, or the world's oldest living person (115 years old), but for every one of those, there are at least ten records like the world's fastest 100 meter hurdle wearing nothing but swim flippers, or the farthest distance milk can be squirted through someone's nose, or the fastest motorized toilet. No, seriously (link).

So we posed the question, to become a world record holder, do you really need to be exceptional? Or do you just need to do something really stupid that no one else is willing to do and call it a 'world record?'

Well, the fact of the matter is that we're not above that, so in that same spirit we decided to set a few astounding Guinness World Records of our own...

1) The Most Gorilla Toenails Collected By a Man Doing Backflips While Skydiving Over the Pacific Ocean

That's right, friends. Backflips. Just when you thought you'd seen it all, we're proud to present to you this mighty aerial dance between man and silverback. And sure, the gorilla may have lost all use of his spine in the process, but it was worth it because now Brandon officially holds the record (2.5 bloody toenails!).

Afterthought: we probably should have packed a parachute for the gorilla, too. Live and learn, though, right?

2) The Most Consecutive Hours of "The Nanny" Endured While Eating Thumbtacks and Writing Haiku Poetry

The badassedness is pretty well self-explanatory here. All three of these things are sadistically unbearable, and when combined, require a superhuman amount of mental stamina to endure. Total consecutive hours for this record? One. Getting your throat stabbed by thumbtacks is one thing, but getting your ears stabbed by Fran Drescher's machine-gun laughter is more than any man can bear.

3) Most Sperm Milked From Whales Double-Handed While Playing The Star Spangled Banner on a Kazoo Played by Rectum

The secret is to just pretend you're skiing

Of course my mom is proud of me, because no other man on the planet has done this before. Except me. Which makes me a world record holder worthy of attention and praise and awards... right? RIGHT? DO I MATTER YET???

Thursday, January 24, 2013

It's no secret that there are a ton of bad movies out there. But, if you've really perused your Netflix cue, or even visited a Redbox recently, you'll see that for every crappy film that boomerangs in and out of theaters, there are four or five low-budget flicks that went straight to DVD. And, most of the time, they're just a blatant ripoff of a movie that was actually popular. Here are a few of our favorites.

You read that correctly. Metal Man. Who needs originality when you've got the aborted twin of Iron Man and a K-Mart costume aisle at your disposal?

That's right. Someone actually wants to be Michael Bay. He'd probably sue if he wasn't so busy working on Jenga: The Movie right now. Spoiler alert: the blocks all explode.

Just when you thought you'd run out of audiovisual diarrhea to enjoy...enter a singin' Sunday with Jesus.

These are all fantastic, right? What a great idea it is...to steal an idea. So good in fact that we here at ABftS can't believe we haven't thought of it before. That said, here are a few borrowed movie ideas we think would make for great films...

1) Los Miserables

It's the dramatic tale of Juan ValJuan, who is deported for stealing a taco for his family. Sure, everyone dies at the end, but it's hard to be depressed when everything's sung to boisterous mariachi music. Starring George Lopez, who, let's face it, just didn't have anything better to work on.

2. PickUP

This one's for the kiddos. A drunk old redneck who lost his wife (and her fingers) to a bad gambling debt wishes he could just fly away, so he attaches some helium balloons to his house and sets off an amazing adventure that may or may not include burglary and grand larceny. Also, his "house" is actually his "pickup truck," but this takes place in the South, so you already knew that.

3. Magic Mark

We haven't forgotten the ladies. If you loved Magic Mike, then you're absolutely going to love this straight to DVD release of Magic Mark. Now remember, a guy like Channing Tatum costs millions of dollars, so what you have here on a very tight budget is the B movie equivalent, and what he lacks in abs and hair and overall chiseled features he more than makes up for with embarrassingly eager enthusiasm.

Now that's how you steal a movie idea. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, B-movie "writers."

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Recently, you may have heard about the media mess surrounding Notre Dame football linebacker, Manti Te'o, and the dead girlfriend who inspired him to famously rally his team and even win the Lombardi Award. Very, very touching. The only problem is, the girlfriend, whom he'd never met in person, wasn't even real. She was just an elaborate prank concocted online, by a guy who had stolen a girl's pictures off of Facebook and pretended to be her. Ouch.

Which was a decent prank, but not the best prank. No, we know of a better prank. One that's been formulating for years.

And so it goes that Brandon was really Meli all along. It was an epic prank, to be sure, and took a lot of craftiness. And it was well worth it to see the shock, anguish, and eventual mental breakdown of his best friend's psyche, knowing that he had broken him mentally, sexually, and spiritually. Right?

Boy, how we'll laugh about this one once he's finally out of therapy and off of suicide watch.

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Recently our friend Rachel over at When a Lion Sleeps held a contest where the winner got a venus flytrap. Defying all odds, I entered and won, bringing my venus flytrap total to 2. See, I'm quite the green thumb, and I'm also a huge fan of meat eating plants. What, plants eat meat too? That's right PETA, so fuck off.

Heeeelp meeeee

"My flytrap brings all the flies to the yard, and they're like, little green carnivores. They'd eat you, but they're not so large..."

Now that I was officially a contest winner, I was on top of the world. My green thumb knew no bounds. So Brandon and I decided to open a plant shop. But there was only one problem. We disagreed on what kind of plants we should grow and sell.

So in the spirit of cooperativeness, we agreed to sell both. And we opened up our brand new shop.

But we quickly ran into a problem. The fly traps were always hungry.

I wonder how many of our younger readers will get that joke.

And soon, they were eating our weed. A lot of it...

...and soon, the plants were addicted. All of that marijuana was giving them a nasty case of the munchies and they just grew hungrier and hungrier, which made them aggressive toward customers.

Which was leaving our customers unhappy.

But I was a bit in denial, so Brandon had to stage an intervention.

So we had to kill the plants and close up shop. I guess I'll stick to small flytraps, like the baby flytrap that Rachel sent me. I mean, how much trouble could I get into with this little guy?

Right now he's practically helpless, so I guess life can just go back to the way it was, no real harm having been done.

Oh, and as promised to Rachel, part of my terms and conditions for winning the contest was to post a picture of the flytrap with a top hat and monocle. Well, the one she sent is too small, so here's my big guy looking as classy as ever. Apparently he's also a smoker, but a classy smoker. You know, the kind that gets the classy kind of lung cancer.

Any carnivorous plant fans here? Would you ever have one in your household? What happened to Rick Moranis, anyway?